What a great time at Paris Salon Art Shopping!

One more award for my work!

A prestigious place, the Louvre Museum

The Paris Salon Art Shopping 2015 took place mid of June at the Carrousel du Louvre and one of my picture was exhibited in the PAKS Gallery booth. It’s the first Art Fair I ever attended and I was very excited to live this event from the booth of the PAKS Gallery that promotes my work in central Europe mainly.

I was very surprised and glad to receive the International Modern Art Award for Conceptual Elements from Heinz, the director of the gallery for my work about the architecture of La Grande Motte. A really good start for me at this Art Fair 🙂

The art fair was open to public from Saturday 10AM to Sunday 6PM, but as exhibitors we started to work the Friday at 1pm to hang all the artworks on the walls of our booth. Needless to say that all exhibitors were there hours before the time we could access the hall and it was very funny to see all those people coming from around the world to show their artworks!

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

The Paris Salon Art Shopping is one of the most major Art event in France with more than 450 artists and galleries exhibiting their artworks in a dedicated big hall inside the Louvre Museum. How prestigious!

Photography and Art fairs

I think that more than 85% of the presented artworks are paintings,10% photographs and 5% sculptures. As a photographer I know 10% is very few but I was told that it increases years after years. Some people still think that photography is not an Art as paintings are, because taking a photo is just pushing a button…

But only jealous people say that because of course photography is much more than pushing a button…It’s really not easy to find inspirations and new projects. It takes a lot of time to plan and it can put you in danger sometime while painting can be paint from your home.

By the way, I can feel that people are more and more interested in photography if it can bring to them something new, different of what they’re used to see. I can also feel that galleries around the world are now investing on emerging photographers because I made a lot of contacts who want to exhibit my artworks in their galleries in Europe or abroad.

More than 10 000 visitors in only 2 (busy) days!

Those 3 days were really busy! First day was dedicated to arrange the booth while Saturday and Sunday were opened to the public. Can you imagine 10 000 people coming to visit and see artworks? It’s really difficult to talk with everyone of them. Most people are here just to take a look, they come with their family and they sometimes stop by and talk because they like one artwork and want to know more about the artist and the story behind the photo or the painting.

That’s my favourite part because people seem to travel when you tell them about the picture and they like to try to compare with their own experience.

Another audience is really interesting too, the collectors… They’re easy to recognize because they go fast… we can feel they want to optimize their time. They come early the morning or late in the evening when most visitors are gone and they go from booths to booths, looking fast every single artwork and they stop only when they see something different. They then ask about the artwork and the artist and take one or more business card.

I was told that collectors almost never buy artworks during art fair, they prefer to call after the event to ask and buy. Another example is this collector who came directly from New York the Saturday morning to visit the salon and went back to the US the same day late in the evening! I hope he enjoyed his day!

On my side, it was the first time in almost 2 years that I came back in Paris. I didn’t really miss this city but it was great to see my friends coming to visit me! Thank you very much to all of you, I’m very happy having see you again after those 2 long years! I hope to see you again in October during a major photo event that will take place in Paris! I’ll let you know!

And then the hall closed its doors…

How depressing to see this huge hall deserted by the people… But time was short and every booth had to be cleaned in less than 3 hours. This Carrousel du Louvre hall is a real industry… when an event comes to an end, everything must be disassembled to let the team of the hall to work on the next event that starts only 24h later.

It’s then look like a circus, with guys working on removing all electricity cables and plugs, some removing the walls of the booths, other the carpets… a huge hive with people running everywhere, synchronized like a ballet!

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

Photos from the Paris Salon Art Shopping, June 2015

I was impressed, almost hypnotized and fascinated! I could hardly imagine than in less than 3 hours everything there is disassembled and , ready for the next event! Take a look on this video where you can see how the hall cleanedis only 1 hour after the salon closed its doors! And look how this electrician is moving with his scale! How funny!

It was really a great event! I learnt so much and I made many contacts. The end of this year is going to be fascinating and I’m working on very exciting opportunities. I’ll let you know once it’s signed!